WHICH BLOWHARD IS FICTIONAL? "Every American. Every American? Well, Howard, I don’t want the government to buy my health insurance. I pay for it. I’m glad to pay for it. I’m proud I can provide it. And I’m also proud that the money you might want to spend on me & mine will instead go to rebuild Iraq..."

"Who could they ask for help? If not God, then who? The Great Society? The Department of Welfare? Travelers Aid?... Look at these hands! The hands of a professional man? Not on your sweet life! The hands of a worker! I worked! These hands toiled from the time I was nine -- strike that, seven!"

One was created by Jules Feiffer. The other could have been imagined by Dickens had he the misfortune to be born into this wretched era of self-righteous suburbanism.